You have to go back to before Thanksgiving to find the last time New England College lost a hockey game.
The Pilgrims (10-3-3) are coming off a weekend that saw them grab three of a possible four points against the top two teams in the New England Hockey Conference, results that moved them into third place with four weekends to go in the regular season.
No. 7 UMass-Boston (13-4) owns first place with 18 points, with No. 13 Babson (12-3-2) right behind with 16 points.
After that, it’s a bunch of teams jostling for position and quarterfinal home ice: NEC’s 13 points have it one ahead of No. 11 Hobart and Skidmore, and two ahead of Norwich.
What have the Pilgrims been doing well? They’re scoring at a 3.38 clip, but it’s the way they’ve effectively kept the puck out of their own net (2.0 goals allowed per game) that’s been a big reason for their success.
It starts with junior goalie Anthony Pupplo. The Neumann transfer leads the NEHC with a .936 save percentage and ranks third in goals-against average (1.98).
There’s not a senior among the defensive core, but the unit’s performed well. Juniors Ryan Walsh (Hanover, Mass.) and Patrick DeBlois (Lewiston, Maine), sophomores Nicholas Rein and CJ Valerian, and freshman Connor Dunn (51 penalty minutes) have logged heavy minutes and had a large hand in this current nine-game unbeaten streak.
Up front, junior Carlos Fornaris has scored just one goal, but his 21 assists rank third in Division 3. The biggest beneficiaries have been senior Connor Fries of Barnstable, Mass. (13-5-18) and freshman Nikita Pintusov (10-7-17).
Fries scored in both games over the weekend. He notched the team’s third goal as the Pilgrims held on for a 3-2 win over UMB, and talled twice in a back-and-forth 4-4 draw with Babson that featured four ties and two lead changes.
The last team to beat the Pilgrims was Hobart, 3-1, back on Nov. 17. That came a day after a 5-2 loss at Skidmore.
Tom Carroll is in his 17th season behind the NEC bench and owns a 235-168-41 career record, and typically at this point in the season is looking up at Norwich, which has won the league in 19 of the last 20 years.
Now, with Norwich trying to fight back into the mix from a slow start, there are only two teams above NEC in the standings. And the Pilgrims showed this past weekend they can play with both of them.
Team of the Week
UMass-Dartmouth
It wasn’t just that the Corsairs tied first-place Plymouth State on Saturday to extend their unbeaten streak to three games. It was how they did it.
UMD (7-7-1) rallied for a 3-3 tie after spotting Plymouth a 2-0 lead in the first period. Kai Kapossy and Steven Leonard scored power-play goals in the third period to square things, and their team finished with big advantages in shots (50-27) and face-off wins (51-37).
That followed a 5-1 win at Salem State. Senior Brendan McDonough (Wilmington, Mass.) had a hand in all but one of the goals in that game, finishing with four assists.
Player of the Week
Michael Grande, soph., D, Trinity
A weekend road sweep of Colby and Bowdoin lifted No. 8 Trinity (9-3-2) into second place in the NESCAC behind Wesleyan.
Grande, a West Chester, Pa., native, assisted on the game-winner in the 2-1 win at Colby, and followed that up with his first career hat trick as the Bantams beat Bowdoin, 5-1. He leads his team in scoring with a 4-8-12 line.
Games to Watch
Babson at Norwich (Friday); UMass-Boston at Norwich (Saturday)
Norwich (8-4-3) looks to be getting traction and is unbeaten in four games in January. This weekend is its chance to make the NEHC race larger than just the two Boston-area teams.
Mike Egan (Billerica, Mass.) is the reigning NEHC Rookie of the Week for No. 13 and second-place Babson, collecting three goals and an assist as the Beavers collected three of a possible four points on the weekend.
No. 7 and first-place UMass-Boston (13-4) actually climbed a spot in the USCHO.com poll despite splitting two games over the weekend. Nolan Redler of Winchester, Mass. (10-10-20) is averaging better than a point a game.
